Various methods have previously been proposed to provide non-invasive, preferably home-based, monitoring of health conditions such as blood pressure, temperature, pulse rate, blood sugar, etc. For example U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2007/0249916 describes a wearable apparatus for continuous non-invasive monitoring of a patient's blood glucose level. Japanese laid-open Patent Application No. JP 2005-241181 describes a remote control apparatus for an air conditioner which incorporates a skin moisture sensor. U.S. Pat. No. 7,423,526 and U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2009/0322513 both describe wearable bracelet-type devices incorporating various physiological monitoring technologies. Furthermore, wearable devices for use either in a hospital or in a home environment and capable of wirelessly reporting and/or alarming various physiological parameters to a central monitoring location have been previously described in the art, for example as may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,382,247, 7,315,736, 7,261,691, or 6,731,962. These health monitoring solutions typically require some type of specialized sensing apparatus in the form of a wearable bracelet, etc., together with a separate purpose-specific unit to receive and relay the wireless reporting signals.
Controlling devices, for example remote controls, for use in issuing commands to entertainment and other appliances, and the features and functionality provided by such controlling devices are well known in the art and have become a ubiquitous part of the modern home for use in conjunction with various appliances such as cable set top boxes, satellite receivers, etc. Such controlling devices may be universal, that is, capable of controlling multiple appliance types of different manufacture, unified, that is, capable of controlling multiple appliance types of the same manufacture, or dedicated, that is, capable only of controlling a single appliance of a specific manufacture. Descriptions of such controlling devices may be found, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,959,810, 5,455,570, 7,046,185, or 7,154,428.
A synergistic combination of these two functionalities is proposed herein.